Never Anticipated

Origins of the past, part 1

I stood there, outside of Star Labs. I knew it wasn't my Star Labs. I knew it wasn't my friends or family inside. What I didn't know or understand, is how I ended up here.

Why would I have ended up at Star Labs? What led me here? Why did something draw me here like a magnet? Why did I feel an instant connection to something, someone that lied just beyone the fence?

I just stood there, dumb founded and lost in a haze of memories.

Flashback

I was only twenty-three at the time. I had a job at STAR Labs. It was like home to me. My parents, my friends. Everyone I loved supported me. This was a time in my life where I was happy. But, a year after, when I was twenty-four, there was a malfunction with the particle accelerator. It exploded. I was out for a few hours after that.

I woke up in the medbay, surronded by my team, along with noticing that there was another woman on the bed next to me. One that didn't seem familiar to me.

"Are you okay?" My friend, Eliana had asked me.

I carefully sat up. "Fine, I'm fine. What happened?" I asked, looking around the room.

"The particle accelerator, it exploded. I guess there was an error in the system." My other friend, Camden said.

"We, accounted for errors. Didn't we? Where's Dr. Wells?" I asked.

Camden and Eliana went quiet. They exchanged a quick glance, then looked back over at me. It was clear that there was pain hidden behind their eyes.

"Cam, where is he?" I asked, my voice beginning to shake slightly.

"Gone." Eliana said, trying to remain calm.

"When is he coming back?" I asked. Of course, there was a part of me that knew what they meant, but I was hoping, with all that I was, that they didn't mean what I thought that they meant. I couldn't stand if they meant what I thought they did.

"Y/n/n, he's dead. The explosion, it killed him. " Camden said, his voice slowly beginning to break.

Tears filled my eyes. I had known Harrison Wells since I was a kid. He was a close family friend, so the idea of losing him had always terrified me. So now, knowing that it was no longer a fear, and simply a reality, tore me to pieces. I didn't want to accept it. I didn't even want to think about it. I just wanted to wake up from whatever nightmare that I was convinced that I was currently living.

I wanted to convince myself that I was asleep, that all of this was simply a bad dream. That, the particle accelerator had, in fact, not gone off yet, and this was just my brain being worried about what could happen if something went wrong.

My silence, though, gave it away, that something was going on in my head. After all, I tended to go quiet when I wanted to rationalize something, or convince myself of something else, true or not.

"Y/n. I'm sorry, I know what you're thinking, and I'm sorry, but this isn't just a bad dream." Camden said.

"How would you know that's what I'm thinking?" I asked.

"I know you." Camden said.

"I wish he wasn't gone." I said.